Have You Ever Noticed the Optical Illusion Hiding on the 8 of Diamonds?

How many times have you whipped out a classic deck of cards for a game with your friends and family? The traditional stacks of 52 cards with suits of hearts, diamonds, clovers, and spades have been around longer than any of us can remember. Whether it's playing Go Fish as a kid or having a regular poker night with your crew, it'd be difficult to find anyone on the planet who hasn’t gone a few rounds with these cards. However, despite being so universally recognizable, one man has blown all of our minds by pointing out an optical illusion hiding in plain sight on one specific card in the deck.

A Twitter user from the United Kingdom who goes by PlinketyPlink shared an image of a simple, ordinary eight of diamonds card with the message, “What age were you when you first saw the 8 in the middle of the 8 of diamonds?” That’s all it took for thousands of fellow Twitter users to flood him with responses, most of them admitting they had never noticed the optical illusion or that they were still struggling to see it. If you’re still scratching your head, take a look at the photo below:

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

Chances are, you’ll never not see that figure eight that’s snuck into the middle of most eight of diamonds! You can make out a similar shape on the rest of the suit of eights from the deck — the heart is the next most-obvious example with the spade and clover being a bit more obscure. Considering the many centuries behind the history of playing cards, we can’t really be sure if this design quirk was intentional or not. That said, the legacy makes it all the more impressive that a humble deck of playing cards can still surprise us after all these years! Who knows, it might even be worth pulling out your own deck and inspecting all of the other suits to see if there’s any more mysteries waiting to be uncovered.